Window Grey

The 1950s saw the emergence of a particular kind of architecture designed to show artworks, what came to be known as the white cube. A space with white walls, overhead lighting, no windows, impeccably clean and straight-edged. This kind of space – or the inclination to come as close as possible to this ideal – became the dominate conception of how art should be exhibited in Western culture. These characteristics are still often held to be the most suitable, neutral and even objective. As if they were endowed with the power to render art objects autonomous in regard to their setting and bringing out what’s best in them. This space, this white cavern, where nothing is visible but projected shadows, this laboratory where we see as through the lenses of binoculars, is said to fully reveal the artwork’s aesthetic qualities as bodies disappear behind us, hidden from our gaze. Yet this model has become controversial and criticized; when an artwork is isolated in this way, its evocative power is diminished. When neutralized, the artwork loses its revolutionary capacity and ability to impact the real world. We could even say that instead of a neutral space, the white cube has become the outstanding symbol of the monetization of art. A context where the art object is above all a commodity subject to financial speculation, just another luxury accessory to amuse the comfortable Western capitalist class. In short, the white cube is a political statement. It does not represent the “objectively” most suitable parameters. And superficial alterations of this model, for instance changing the colour of a wall, are far from sufficient. How can art exhibition spaces be reimagined? What must change – the way they are organized, utilized and financed? Window Grey, this show’s title which is also the technical name of the colour used for the floors of the exhibition rooms, seeks to explore these questions and reflect on the tensions at work in the relationship between artworks and the space where they are presented. What are the boundaries between them? Do the art objects benefit from this particular context at the CAN, or are they dependent on it? * everyone knows that the winter months here in Neuchâtel are gloomy the clouds hang low and stagnate over the lake weighing heavily on the surrounding hills Window Grey if it could be described as a palette it would be comprised of many shades of white with a narrower range of greys a touch of dull blue and a golden glow in this seemingly sober atmosphere architectural cut-outs provide a certain rhythm to the exhibition our vision halts at the distant walls the horizon of a room diverse angles contradict one another at one point a slightly inclined ramp and at another two stairsteps translucent windowpanes carve up the exterior and cast their grids interior spaces as if an answer our eyes stop looking at the floor eggshell white alabaster vanilla above in the middle of all this whiteness golden letters this false distancing everywhere a delicate radicality hides in the details at another point suggestive folds rejects framings that disconcert rather than organize the pebbles when you walk around the edge of the lake cottony fog and images emptied of their substances by dint of being reproduced the crunching of forms